55 year old preparing for out of work | Hacker News Reader

55 year old preparing for out of work

17 pointsrogeralan12 comments

I’m a 55 year old Classic ASP programmer preparing for job loss. I’m wondering how to prep in today’s market. Should I be worried? What languages should I learn?

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Is it safe to assume (since you're an ASP programmer) that you're already competent with HTML?

If so, then I'd highly recommend you get up to speed with HTML5 and mobile development. It's the direction things are going.

Try to think as many moves ahead as you can. :)

Good luck!!

Actually I second this. In addition, you could make your own projects and keep using ASP classic.

I have personally had more ASP classic in my life than I wanted to, but aside from its age and possibly dwindling support, there's no reason you couldn't make a game or app that you wanted, target to a mobile platform and slowly learn ASP.Net or another language in the meantime.

I highly recommend Python, FWIW. I tried jumping from classic ASP to Perl, C and Ruby, but none of them stuck until I found Python, so at least from my perspective, it's an easy transition from ASP to Python. Your mileage may vary.

yes, I know SQL Server, HTML, CSS, I have been working with JQuery for a couple of years now. What concerns me is my backend server language. Thanks, I'll brush up on my HTML5 as well.

As a developer of approximately the same vintage, I'd say the most natural transition is to C# and full .NET skills. Add to that SQL Server skills for good measure. Most of your ASP skills will translate naturally and you can take advantage of Microsoft's free C#/VB.Net Express compilers and SQL Server Express.

Also, I'd highly recommend you invest in a Microsoft Certified Software Developer (MCSD) certification. Get one of the study guides and take the exam. It'll only cost you $200-$300 total but will give you proof that your skills are verifiably current in an interview.

C#, C++ and Java are very common and low risk skills to learn. There is also a demand for mobile application development and front end development with Html and JavaScript. The Ruby on Rails frame work is common especially at newer tech companies.

I agree, C# and Java would probably be easier to get started with than C++, these are mature technologies with companies that seem to really value years of developer experience so you could probably transfer over fairly easily.

If you post here, you are already half way through, because it means you know where you are and that you want to go somewhere else. For the the somewhere else, I would say, take a look around you. ASP is not necessarily bad, many systems are still running on top of ASP and a good knowledge of it can help you land deals where people need this kind of knowledge.

So, look for new things (pay particular attention not to fall into fade) but do not consider your ASP knowledge as just to be thrown away. I am sure you can make a living out of it — I make a living working with old school Fortran 77 code...

Interesting... I didn't think of leveraging my ASP skills. Thanks.

I would learn PHP.

I second Loic's and Diminish's suggestions. What I've seen with COBOL, RPG and FORTRAN is that over time the rates for freelancers actually go up due to scarcity of supply.

Typically there is a rush to new tools, etc. So you can either learn some new framework, tools etc and be competing with a lot of similarly skilled programmers. OR ... you can contract yourself to maintain and enhance "legacy" systems. Languages/frameworks fall out of vogue far quicker than the systems implemented in them.

Ruby on Rails?

Watch the Ruby on Rails episodes, learn Ruby and assuming you know HTML, and CSS you quickly may charm a younger team. And if you know SQL etc, it will have an advantage.

Or you may simply maintain an ASP- VB application in MS environment. This days it is hard to find maintainers for VB, VB6, ASP legacy apps.

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